


On the Outside, Always Looking In

by itbepansam



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Inner Dialogue, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 14:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19087306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itbepansam/pseuds/itbepansam
Summary: Caleb stays up to take watch alone one night out in the Barbed Fields. The following is just his thoughts as he sits there alone.





	On the Outside, Always Looking In

**Author's Note:**

> I had some Emotions and needed to get them out.

The feeling is both familiar and alien to Caleb as he stays awake and alone that night. He can't quite place what he's feeling as he looks to his friends, his  _ family _ , as they sleep soundly in his little bubble, totally unaware of his inner turmoil as it festers beneath his skin like a disease. 

The day's excursion had been nearly catastrophic, having Fjord, Jester, and Yasha go down. Caleb had felt particularly useless as he had no way to help with healing. All he knows is how to destroy. And that's what he had done to their enemy. He burned them to a crisp. He could still smell the burnt flesh in his nose, a scent that is so familiar to him. 

“What are you doing?” He asks himself in the silence. “You're kidding yourself. Look at them. Look at  _ her.”  _ His eyes drift to Jester, sound asleep with a smile on her face as she sleeps next to Fjord. “She loves him. She has since the moment you met her. And  _ he _ ,” Caleb looks to Fjord, “has no idea what he's doing. But he cares for her, too.

“And what of the monk?”His gaze moves to Beauregard, who is sleeping next to Yasha. “The second of two people you trust the most in this group and she's distancing herself. To what end?” From him? From the group?

He sighs deeply, shaking his head and looking to his hands. His hands that are forever charred black from the fire he casts. 

“The other two are so different from you. One you like because you're both introverts and have deemed yourselves cowards. The other is a mystery to you and you owe a debt to him that you aren’t sure when he will invoke.” 

Finally, he gets to the sleeping goblin. Nott. Veth. She is both at the same time. He admires her bravery, wishes he had the same. He wonders how she can stand being both Nott and Veth. He can't handle being Bren. Caleb was who he was now. Bren had died that night in the fire as well. Caleb was born in the jail cell when he met Nott. And he loves her for it. He loves her as much as a broken man can love someone. He would do anything for her and that thought alone terrifies him. 

Who was he kidding? He cared for all of them. 

~~_ But does anything care about Caleb? Anyone? _ ~~

Jester has Fjord. Beau has Yasha. Caduceus has his Wild Mother. And Nott has Yeza and her son. 

Caleb has renounced his empire, his home, his  _ parent's  _ home. He has committed treason in the sake of keeping himself and his friends alive. He has put himself out in public for the first time in years and he knows at any given point his past will come to kill him. He has no home. 

He has no one. 

He has nothing but this dome full of people that he loves so dearly that all seem to being moving in directions that Caleb can't see.

Caleb watches them sleep, suddenly feeling like he's on the outside of the dome. He feels the loneliness while being surrounded by the Mighty Nein. He feels the anger at himself for being so stupid to let himself get attached. He feels… He doesn't know what he feels. He just knows that he needs these people, but they don't seem to need him. They walk around and live their lives and  move on past him. They don’t see what he’s trying to do. They don’t know what he’s already done. They don’t see  _ him. _

“You should leave. Just get up and walk out of the dome,” he tells himself. 

“And where will I go?” He asks. 

“Go to Essek. Ask him to take you in so that you may continue to dedicate yourself to the Dynasty.”

He is quiet for a moment. 

“What about them?”

What about them?

This random group of people that he happened to stumble upon in a tavern at the southern end of the empire. This group that has seen death. This group that has helped the Dynasty in much greater ways than they had previously anticipated. 

“I will go.”

And he sits there for another five minutes. 

And then twenty. 

And then an hour. 

And he stays and watches the sun come up and waits for his family to wake up. 


End file.
